Desertification dynamics in the Tarim Basin during 1990-2020

doi:10.1016/j.regsus.2025.100226

Abstract

Abstract:

Desertification poses a significant ecological threat to global sustainability, notably within arid regions such as the Tarim Basin surrounding the extensive Taklimakan Desert in Northwest China. This study used the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform and Random Forest (RF) to analyze multi-temporal Landsat images to reveal desertification dynamics in the Tarim Basin spanning from 1990 to 2020. The results showed that land use types of the Tarim Basin were classified into three types: artificial oases, natural oases, and desertified land. To robustly quantify the spatiotemporal dynamics of land use, we introduced the Desertification Change Index (DCI), a novel metric specifically designed to measure the transformation sensitivity of land use types. Our analysis demonstrated that from 1990 to 2020, artificial oases showed a continuous increasing trend, while desertified land decreased significantly. Natural oases decreased during 1990-2000, then continued to grow, and showed a decreasing trend again after 2015. Moreover, natural oases have mainly been converted into desertified land and artificial oases. Artificial oases were mainly converted into natural oases, and most of desertified land was converted into natural oases. Regions with significant oasis expansion (DCI=2) were mostly concentrated within the influence radius of artificial oases. In contrast, regions with significant oasis degradation (DCI= -2) were generally farther from artificial oases. Finally, this study found that the changes in land use types of the Tarim Basin are mainly driven by human activities, which play a dual role—mitigating desertification by controlling oasis expansion and exacerbating desertification through unsustainable resource utilization. Ultimately, this research provides essential insights for policy-makers and land managers aiming to devise adaptive and sustainable desertification control measures in the Tarim Basin and similarly arid regions globally.

Key words: Random Forest (RF), Desertification Change Index (DCI), Artificial oases, Natural oases, Desertified land, Tarim Basin

YU Xiang, LEI Jiaqiang, GAO Xin, SUN Lingxiao, LYU Zhentao, Ireneusz MALIK, Malgorzata WISTUBA. Desertification dynamics in the Tarim Basin during 1990-2020[J]. Regional Sustainability, 2025, 6(3): 100226.

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Year	Landsat sensor	Selected date	Number of images	Cloud cover limit (%)
1990	Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM)	June-August in 1990, 1991, and 1992	45	<10.00
1995	Landsat 5 TM	June-August in 1995, 1996, and 1997	48	<10.00
2000	Landsat 5 TM	June-August in 2000, 2001, and 2002	46	<10.00
2005	Landsat 5 TM	June-August in 2005, 2006, and 2007	47	<10.00
2010	Landsat 5 TM	June-August in 2010, 2011, and 2012	49	<10.00
2015	Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI)	June-August in 2015, 2016, and 2017	52	<10.00
2020	Landsat 8 OLI	June-August in 2020	16	<10.00

Land use type conversion	1990-1995	1995-2000	2000-2005	2005-2010	2010-2015	2015-2020
Artificial oases→natural oases (×10⁴ km²)	0.21	0.21	0.20	0.11	0.13	0.25
Natural oases→desertified land (×10⁴ km²)	1.98	1.94	1.35	1.21	1.51	2.07
Desertified land→natural oases (×10⁴ km²)	1.56	2.38	1.86	2.00	2.08	1.50
Natural oases→artificial oases (×10⁴ km²)	0.24	0.36	0.37	0.61	0.61	0.37